Album Reviews by Marshall Gu

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Deerhunter – Rainwater Cassette Exchange [EP]

I always feel a little sorry for mainstream writers who have to reach a word count for describing EPs that are clearly a collection of b-sides from the album that just came out (see also: Daniel Rossen’s Golden Mile; the Antlers’ (together); Grizzly Bear’s Friend and Shields: B-Sides EPs, though they were nice enough to label the latter; Deerhunter’s own Flourescent Grey, which at least had the title track, which is better than anything here). Here, you’ll find dry-runs for “Nothing Ever Happened” (“Circulation”) and Monomania(“Disappearing Ink”), and theremin or backing vocals hiding the fact that there wasn’t much else going on in the first place (“Famous Last Words” and “Game of Diamonds” respectively). The title track’s verses are a summer-y drift (interestingly, the first thing to come to mind was “Poopsicles and Icicles”) that’s so drenched in reverb that it effectively becomes autumnish. Shame the choruses are so generic.